The background description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided in this application is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
Currently, large user- and publisher-generated content distribution systems use methods of advertising and distribution that operate in a demand-per-video system. Content distributors gather important advertising information on a per-video basis, and advertising costs are generally correlated directly with the number of views a single video obtains. This current internet-content-distribution paradigm presents limitations for many classes of advertisers. Local advertisers, for example, interested in advertising only in a limited geographic area, must effectively pay to compete for the space with national advertisers. Viewers are disadvantaged, too, because they may be forced to interact with the system to choose content too frequently. And content creators are also disadvantaged because the per-video advertisement system makes short videos economically impossible to create. Few viewers want to watch a thirty-second advertisement before a two-minute video.
Traditional cable distribution systems package content into channels, with each channel controlled by a content programmer responsible for that channel's content. In these systems, viewers do not decide to watch content on a per-video basis, but instead choose a channel and follow the content selection of the channel's content programmer. Advertisements may be sold based on channel viewership, rather than video viewership.
A system is needed that combines favorable aspects of internet content distribution with favorable aspects of traditional cable content distribution, such as a content programmer. This invention presents a network-based system that allows a traditional content programming and distribution model to incorporate internet-based content and advertisements.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,578,408 to Richard W. Tom, et al. teaches a method and apparatus for providing advertisements based on user preferences. According to the method taught by this patent, the steps comprise receiving first data from a user device that identifies a video program to be streamed, transmitting second data to the user device that includes a resource locator for video content and metadata indicating a time to insert an advertisement. The patent fails to teach a system of packaging internet-based content to comport with traditional “channel selection” paradigm of a cable television model over an internet-based distribution system.
Reference is also made to video encoding and decoding techniques, and methods of combining different videos of different formats. Media content may be digitally encoded in many different digital formats. For video-based formats, it is undesirable to stream raw digital video and audio data over the internet because these formats require too much bandwidth, and quality that is imperceptibly different to the human eye from the raw format may be achieved through encoding formats that reduce the bit-rate necessary to transmit the data. For example, digital video data is commonly encoded using a lossy compression encoding format such as H.264/MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding (“H.264”), H.265, windows media video (“WMV”), and other formats. Similarly, audio digital media data is commonly encoded using a lossy compression encoding format such as Advanced Audio Coding (“AAC”), Audio Data Transport Stream (“ADTS”), MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (“MP3”), and others. Lossless encoding formats exist but are less common because they require higher bit rates.
Before video content is distributed, it is wrapped into a package according to a package format. The package format is a metafile format that specifies how encoded data and metadata are stored. For example, there exists the MPEG-4 Part 14 package format (“MP4”), F4V Flash Video package format, Audio Video Interleave, and others. These package formats contain metadata that instruct a client device how to play the encoded digital video and audio data contained therein, and they may also optionally support other metadata, such as subtitles, titles, bookmarks, etc.
These package formats, before transport, are packed according to a transport protocol. Recently, video and audio transport schemes have been developed that are readily adaptable to changing bit rates, so-called dynamic adaptive streaming over hypertext transfer protocol. For example, MPEG dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (“MPEG-DASH”) breaks a single source content into a sequence of small segments containing a short interval of playback. When a client device plays a segment of content, it also measures the bandwidth of the connection to the server content source. Based on the bandwidth measurement, it instructs the server content source to send the next short content segment encoded at the highest bit-rate corresponding to the available bandwidth. Other similar dynamic adaptive streaming technologies also exist, such as Adobe HTTP dynamic streaming, Apple HTTP live streaming, Microsoft Smooth Streaming, etc. These adaptive streaming technologies may use a variety of different video encoding schemes, such as those mentioned above.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,521,899 to Aashima Narula, et al. teaches that video data encoded, packaged into a package format, and packetized may be re-packaged into a new package format and re-packetized according to determinations of package formats and transport protocols supported by an individual client, without re-encoding video data. Narula does not teach a way to enable a system of delivering internet-based content of different encoding, package, or transport formats to a single client seamlessly with advertisements that may also be a different format and fails to appreciate other aspects of the present invention that will be more apparent by description.